How to Create a Direct Mail Campaign in Under an Hour

In the "olden days," creating a direct mail campaign would take weeks, if not months. But then everything changed.

Direct mail automation opened up the possibilities of direct mail marketing, offering a scalable, personalized, connected, and measurable channel that drives conversion rates to help achieve a higher ROI.

Lob is a leader in this space, allowing marketers to create and send intelligent mail in less than an hour. This simplified experience seamlessly integrates with your existing tech stack to enable quick and efficient omnichannel campaigns.

Are you wondering how to create a direct mail campaign in minutes? This guide tells all.

Direct mail automation is as easy as 1, 2, 3

Lob has made what was once impossible possible. Being the only automation platform that transforms direct mail into intelligent mail, Lob helps enterprises achieve massive ROI. By transforming manual, repetitive processes, you can accelerate time to value while reducing costs — it's a win-win. Plus, it is incredibly easy.

Direct mail automation can be summed up in three key steps:

1. Create a personalized campaign in minutes. Choose to schedule ahead, send last minute, or trigger mail based on customer behavior. Read more about trigger-based examples, including new customer and shopping cart triggers.
   
   
2. With a click of a button, send mailpieces. Select how you want to send your campaigns and when the mailpieces need to arrive in your customers' mailboxes.
   
   
3. Optimize campaigns and track conversions. Don't fall victim to outdated print and mail processes costing businesses billions of wasted time and poor growth. It's time to replace manual tasks with automation software. This approach will help you boost ROI and significantly increase your conversation rate.
   

How to create a direct mail campaign in minutes

Creating intelligent mail at scale in under an hour may seem futuristic, especially if you have not leveraged the power of direct mail for quite some time. However, that "future" is already here. As more marketers pour funds into offline marketing channels, such as direct mail, they continue to take advantage of this channel's potential. For example, 67% of marketers say that direct mail provides the highest ROI of any channel.

Here's how to create highly successful campaigns in no time — investing in no-code and low-code marketing platforms is key.

Identify your objective

What is it you wish to achieve? Is brand awareness and acquisition a top priority? Would you like to significantly improve response rates? Or perhaps your goal is to build customer loyalty and cut costs? Lob will allow you to automate your direct mail workflow regardless of what you want to accomplish. It's all about moving faster and being more strategic to create new growth opportunities.

Determine when the mail should arrive

Your marketing messages need to be relevant and timely, particularly when your communications are time-sensitive. Work backwards to understand when you should submit your direct mail assets so they arrive in your target audience's mailboxes. For example, when sending USPS First-Class Mail, mail will arrive within 4-6 business days.

Pull list of consumers to mail (or automate through trigger-based mail)

Knowing who to target and when is half the battle, as you will be able to speak to their specific pain point, desire, or need. So, pull lists that make sense for your next campaign.

It's also crucial to understand the power of marketing automation triggers. Lob's APIs integrate with customer data and internal systems, making it easy to trigger offline communications for specific customer activities or milestones. Offline communications can be set on autopilot by integrating with your CRM. For example, you can easily connect Hubspot Workflows to Lob to pull a mailing list.

Your triggers will be highly reliant on your industry and goals. Once you align triggers with your target audience, their actions will help you send more targeted mail. For example, in the financial services industry, once a consumer pays off their credit card, this action could trigger an offer.

Tip: To be more proactive with your data concerning reliable consumer lists, lean on a marketing data engine like Clearbit. This platform improves the other software you use, including Salesforce, Marketo, HubSpot, and more. By enriching your data, you can then create hyper-targeted, personalized campaigns.

Compose the creative for your personalized campaign

With Lob, you can easily create personalized mailpieces in minutes. Lob's template gallery makes the process simple, efficient, and professional, whether you want to send letters, postcards, folded self-mailers, or custom envelopes.

However, you're not constrained to these templates. Find creative ways to tell your story, focusing on best practices for direct mail creative — and once you do, harness the power of a no-nonsense strategy.

Related: 5 Personalized Direct Mail Examples to Inspire Your Marketing Campaigns

Once this step is complete, you'll need to finalize your campaign, and that's that. You're done!

Partner with Lob

If you're stuck on how to create a direct mail campaign that is quick and effective, look no further. Lob makes this process as easy as 1,2,3. You can send 100 or a million pieces of mail with just a few clicks. What would have once taken three months can now be achieved in less than a week, resulting in optimized and trackable campaigns.

Interested in learning more about how automated direct mail can increase your ROI potential by 300%? Request a demo today!